Federal Election 2019: Election ads are a law unto themselves

Scott Morrison, Bill Shorten grilled on cost of their tax and climate polices

The West Australian

VideoBoth leaders have come under pressure to cough up the figures for their signature polices

It’s generally understood that advertisers have a moral and legal obligation to be truthful.

Advertisers are not allowed to make false and misleading claims and this is policed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has the authority to prosecute and fine.

They’re a scary bunch, well equipped to protect the public. In 2018 they sought to give Heinz a $10 million penalty for misleading claims in advertising. This sort of outcome sits top of mind for most advertisers and their ad agencies when they are looking to make spurious claims.

Telling porkies in your advertising has the potential to be a reverse Powerball on your business, your credibility and your life.

That’s unless you’re working on political ads of course, because the people who make the laws have given themselves a giant free kick when it comes to telling the truth in advertising and exempted themselves and their ad campaigns from the law.

It gives political parties incredible latitude to say whatever they want in ads without the risk of any legal consequences.

They simply don’t have to tell the truth, or from a more cynical perspective it’s completely legal to tell outright lies in political ads.

There’s not even a process where you can formally complain to the independent Advertising Standards organisation like you can for any other advertising complaint.

It’s only week one of the campaign but we are already seeing Liberal Party ads that say that ‘Bill Shorten wants to tax your ute’, Holden or whatever brand of vehicle you favour.

Now, this is totally untrue and if it was in an ad being run by a company or individual then someone would be in court and writing a big cheque and running some ads to say sorry.

But, hey, this is political advertising, so the truth doesn’t really matter and there’s no incentive whatsoever to be truthful when you can get a bigger reaction from telling a lie.

When you’re charged with creating political ads and you don’t have to tell the truth it opens up a whole universe of possibilities. There’s absolutely no reason to hold back if your pants aren’t at risk of catching fire.